EU official: IP cure more costly than prevention

Utility models and collective management of rights will be among the issues of the upcoming Sino-EU efforts in intellectual property, said a senior official of the European Commission.

Utility models are a kind of intellectual property with less stringent requirements and shorter duration of protection than invention patents. In China and some European countries they can include designs and structures.

In addition, a three-year project named IP Key that began in mid-January will cover the entire IP spectrum, said Kerstin Jorna, director of Intellectual Property Directorate at the European Commission, during her visit to Beijing in late April.